Liv learned then what Claudia’s anger sounded like, what power she had and that she knew all about the processes of litigation. She learned too that the Hindes were not so careless in money matters as she had supposed. Until then she would never have imagined either of them scrutinizing a credit card statement or checking items on it against a bill. The thought came to her that she would be wise to hand the contents of the tin to James and say to him that this was what had accumulated out of the notes he had handed to her. She couldn’t do it. The money in the tin was her reason for living, for being there at all. Adding to it was what made the agony of looking after these children worthwhile. And it was the only interest she had, a kind of hobby, the sole distraction—unless you counted Jonny.

Jonny “chatted her up,” to use one of Silver’s old-fashioned phrases. She was leaving the car park one afternoon with Cyrus beside her and Marcus and Georgia in the back, strapped into their child seats, and she’d handed him the £50 note Claudia had given her that morning.

“Didn’t your old man give you anything smaller, sweetheart? You’ll clean me out of change, you will.”

“Old man?” said Liv, unfamiliar with idioms used by neither the cleaning woman nor James and Claudia.

“Husband, partner, feller.” Jonny stuck his thumb out in the direction of the backseat where by this time Marcus was screaming and kicking and Georgia was whimpering. “Looks like he’s been busy.”

Fortunately, or not as the case may be, Liv understood very little of this, but she knew what “husband” meant. “I have no husband. I am nanny.” By then she had stopped describing herself as the au pair. If she was going to kill herself for these children, she might as well have the dignity of the title. “Wait and I am looking for money.”

She found the pound coin and the 20p piece, or whatever was needed. Jonny took it from her, holding her fingers at the same time.

“If you’re a free woman with free evenings maybe, how about coming out for a drink with yours truly one of these fine nights?”

Marcus continued to scream. The baby sobbed. Cyrus turned around and made a hideous face. “Shut the fuck up.”

“Language,” said Jonny, who habitually used such expressions himself. “Needs his mouth washed out with Dettol.”

“Yours truly?” said Liv.

“Me.”

“I don’t know. Perhaps. What fine night?”

“When are you off? No time like the present. I tell you what. I’ll meet you at nine in the Robert Browning—you know where that is?”

“I know.”